I'm a programmer. Years ago someone asked me, "what is a program?" I gave the conventional answer, that it's a set of instructions for a computer to do something. But even then I knew that it wasn't a very good answer. Is it the deck of cards in my hand (this was a long time ago)? Is the the source that I edit? The translated executable? The state of the memory of the computer when the program is running?
And if I copy the deck of cards, do I have two programs now? No, only one; just two copies of the same program. So a program is not a tangible, material thing. It is an idea. It is super-material, something I can recognize it when I see it as a material instance but not the instance itself. What would a materialist say? It's epiphenomenal: a by product of brain states. Now that's a kludge if I've every seen one.
You can say the same things about a book, by the way. Paperback and hardback editions are copies of the same book. There's only one book though lots of copies. So am I an idealist in the philosophic sense? Probably not. There are problems with that too. Rather, there's a mystery in the relationship between mind and body that we will probably never understand; and so there is a mystery in body, soul and spirit, in the three persons of the trinity, in the unity of a woman with a man in marriage, in friendship bonds that span decades, in the love of a mother for her children. It is something that somehow involves relationship: I am made in the image of God and fundamentally God is the One who relates. Another mystery.
At any rate, I'm not a materialist who believes that what's we can see and touch is all there is. We live in a world of mystery and walk through it as though we understand it. Yet in the end we never can and must yield ourselves to this reality and embrace it.
And if I copy the deck of cards, do I have two programs now? No, only one; just two copies of the same program. So a program is not a tangible, material thing. It is an idea. It is super-material, something I can recognize it when I see it as a material instance but not the instance itself. What would a materialist say? It's epiphenomenal: a by product of brain states. Now that's a kludge if I've every seen one.
You can say the same things about a book, by the way. Paperback and hardback editions are copies of the same book. There's only one book though lots of copies. So am I an idealist in the philosophic sense? Probably not. There are problems with that too. Rather, there's a mystery in the relationship between mind and body that we will probably never understand; and so there is a mystery in body, soul and spirit, in the three persons of the trinity, in the unity of a woman with a man in marriage, in friendship bonds that span decades, in the love of a mother for her children. It is something that somehow involves relationship: I am made in the image of God and fundamentally God is the One who relates. Another mystery.
At any rate, I'm not a materialist who believes that what's we can see and touch is all there is. We live in a world of mystery and walk through it as though we understand it. Yet in the end we never can and must yield ourselves to this reality and embrace it.
LeRoy here. Excellent. Most of reality is invisible, yet we somehow stay fixated on the tangible and try to explain away all of the mystery that even resides in that.
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